


the hand is the visible part of the brain

by jeonghoneys



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: 5 + 1 Things, Alternate Universe - College/University, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Rated T for swearing, Soft Bang Chan, Soft Lee Minho | Lee Know, and then i just didn't change it, but at least you know, everyone has at least a speaking role, first fic of 2021 heck yeah, ft that one scene from httyd 2 that is the source of all my creativity, i am a victorian lady writing a letter to her bff that's why, i realised abt 1k in that this would be better told from minho's pov, i think they're soft, i thought this would be abt 6-7k i did Not expect it to get this long, lots of words are Randomly Capitalised, multiple tumblr memes are referenced, not to fall into tropes but Chan Is Oblivious, should i tag this as soft?, side hyunin - i didn't tag it bc they're not exactly centre-stage, so i tagged them all, that doesn't really come up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-04
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-14 13:20:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28546257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jeonghoneys/pseuds/jeonghoneys
Summary: Jeongin lets out an aggrieved sigh. Chan startles.  ‘Hyung,’ Jeongin groans, tipping his head back so he can stare, blank-eyed, at the ceiling. ‘Do you need the rest of us to start carrying around signs that say "That’s a hint!" so we can wave them around whenever things like this happen?’(Or, five times Minho comes up with an Excuse to hold Chan's hand, and one time Chan is Proactive and Asks.)
Relationships: Bang Chan/Lee Minho | Lee Know
Comments: 24
Kudos: 137





	the hand is the visible part of the brain

**Author's Note:**

> i'm Back, Babey!!! this was mostly written in school, during lessons, so if any of the phrasing seems off, that's why  
> title is a kant (of would-you-tell-a-murderer-where-your-friend-is fame) quote

_i._

Chan and Minho are walking back from the corner shop when Minho asks Chan one of the most confusing questions he’s ever been asked.

They’ve just gone to get snacks for their group movie night, Jisung and Felix having gone mysteriously silent when Seungmin opened the snack cupboard and found it empty, and Minho is swinging the plastic bag in his hand as they walk. For some reason, he’d bought a tin of tuna as well, which is not the most common of snacks, but who is Chan to judge Minho’s preferred snack of choice?

They stop at the zebra crossing. ‘Hyung,’ Minho murmurs, tugging at Chan’s sleeve. ‘Can we take the shortcut through the park?’ He’s looking across at the park; something must have caught his eye.

The shortcut through the park is actually a longcut. They both know this, but Minho pouts at Chan, lip wobbling sadly, and if there’s one thing Chan isn’t known for, it’s resisting his dongsaengs when they bust out the puppy eyes. Minho shouldn’t  _ really  _ be part of that category, but he conveniently ignores that fact to trample all over Chan. Chan sighs. ‘Sure.’ The rest of the boys are probably still arguing about which movie to pick anyway.

Chan made the right choice, clearly, because Minho gives him a bright smile. As they cross the road, the sun finally comes out from behind the clouds, meaning Chan has to squint before they both get into the blessedly non-blinding shade of a tree. Chan doesn’t regret his all-black wardrobe, not in the slightest - but the sun beating down on him and the warmth from it, spreading from his head to his toes, doesn’t really do wonders for his willingness to stay awake. As they step into the park, Minho smiles again, kneeling down to rub the head of a cat that he’d somehow managed to spot from within the hedge, across the road. Mellow sunshine spreads through Chan. Minho roots around for his tin of tuna and Chan crouches down next to him.

‘Friend of yours?’

‘I cut through this park a lot,’ Minho says, opening the tin of tuna and dumping half of it in a neat little mound. ‘This is Trip.’

‘Trip?’

‘We first met when I tripped over him.’

‘Huh.’

Minho looks up. ‘Don’t worry, he didn’t get hurt.’ Trip purrs at this, smushing his face into Minho’s hand and letting them know his opinion. ‘See?’ Minho says, before turning back to Trip. ‘Aren’t you  _ precious? _ ’

Trip rubs against Minho’s ankles, then he moves on to Chan. Chan hovers his hand over Trip, trying to decide where to pet him. Before he can make a decision, Minho takes his hand and draws it down to rest on Trip’s head. ‘Minho,’ Chan mumbles, amused. ‘Just because I have a dog, it doesn’t mean I don’t know how to pet cats. I play with Soonie, Doongie and Dori all the time when I’m round yours, remember?’

‘Is it my fault I thought your old man brain had finally stopped working?’ Minho asks, smirking when Chan just gapes at him, outraged. He shrugs in the face of Chan’s offended speechlessness. ‘That’s what I thought, grandpa.’

Minho pulls Chan’s hand through Trip’s fur, because apparently Chan’s Old Man Brain Cells have all deserted him and he needs help petting a cat. Minho isn’t even that much younger than Chan! Surely he has Old Man Brain Cells as well? Jisung will definitely say yes, so Chan decides that later, he’ll make sure Minho hears him ask Jisung if Minho is as ancient as the dust beneath them. A quick reality-check never hurt anyone.

Minho sits down on the grass, crossing his legs and placing his bag next to him. Trip immediately butts at Minho’s knee, purring when Minho lightly scratches at the top of his head.

Chan sits down as well, tangling the fingers of one hand in the grass and rooting through the snack bag with the other. He pulls out a packet of crackers. ‘Is that all for Trip?’ he asks, pointing at the half-empty tin of tuna placed neatly to Minho’s side.

‘What?’ Minho turns to look at the tuna. ‘No, he only has half a tin. Here,’ Minho picks it up and passes it to Chan, ‘you can have some.’

‘Thanks,’ Chan hums. He tears open the cracker packet and digs one cracker into the tuna. The cracker might have been expecting some cheese, but Chan isn’t Wallace, and Berry isn’t Gromit, and he’s not about to go all the way to the moon for some cheese to have with his crackers when there’s an already-opened tin of tuna right there. The Universal Laws of Cracker Consumption will just have to deal with Chan’s minor breach of cracker-eating etiquette.

Chan makes short work of the crackers and tuna, then gets up to throw the empty packets in the bin. As he wanders back, Chan brushes himself down and adjusts his jacket. He crouches down next to Minho again, and the smell of the tuna must be lingering on his fingers despite the wet wipe he’d used, because Trip ambles over to him and sniffs his hand. Chan drags his fingers through Trip’s thick fur again.

Eventually, Chan cuts through the purring and quiet  _ baby _ s and  _ precious _ s and _ best boy _ s to say, ‘We’d best head back now. We shouldn’t keep the boys waiting too long. Besides,’ he adds, hefting one of the bags like it hasn’t been on the ground this whole time, ‘these aren’t exactly light, you know?’

Minho gives Trip one last scratch and hefts his own. ‘Yeah.’ He nudges Chan back on to the path, turning around to blow Trip a quick kiss. 

Chan casts a longing glance at the ice cream van he’s only just seen, but he shoulders the immense burden of his plastic bag of snacks and moves on. 

‘Hey, Channie,’ Minho says, and wow, Chan loves being called Channie? So he likes it when his friends give him nicknames, sue him. Minho calls him  _ idiot hyung _ a lot more than strictly necessary, so is Chan going to cry over this later? (Yes, but that’s really no one’s business but his own.)

‘Yes?’

And this is when Minho hits Chan with a question that bewilders him. Confuses the living daylights out of him. He’s absolutely  _ gobsmacked _ . The look on his face is comparable to the collective consciousness of tumblr upon finding out that destiel is  _ canon _ . Why? Because Minho points at his hand and asks, ‘Is that heavy?’

His  _ hand, _ not the snacks bag. Minho doesn’t point at the bag he’s swinging in his other hand; no, Minho points at a limb that Chan has had  _ since birth. _ Is it heavy? Is his hand  _ heavy _ ? ‘Um,’ Chan says. He holds his hand up. ‘This? Is this heavy? My hand?’

Minho nods. ‘Yes. Is your hand heavy, Channie?’

Chan blinks. ‘Not that I noticed? Why, is  _ your  _ hand heavy? Are you tired? I can take your bag if you want?’

Minho giggles. He might say something, but a sudden burst of birdsong drowns it out.

‘Sorry?’ Chan says. ‘I didn’t catch that.’

‘My bag isn’t heavy, don’t worry.’ Minho stops suddenly. Chan manoeuvres him to the side of the path, so that they’re not blocking anyone’s way. ‘I was just wondering if you needed help carrying your hand?’

Chan does his best to convey the emotion ‘???’ on his face, but he must not succeed, because Minho merely nods and reaches for Chan’s hand.

‘I know,’ he says sympathetically, patting the back of Chan’s hand before squeezing Chan’s palm, ‘it must be hard carrying such a heavy hand.’

Chan lets out a deep, world-weary sigh. All he wanted to do was get some snacks for his dongsaengs so that they can watch a movie together. But what does he get? Minho  _ insulting  _ his hands. The things he goes through for the children, honestly. His hand is heavy? Alright. At least Minho is willing to help (?) him with it.

Minho starts swinging their hands as they walk. Chan remembers this from his physics classes - something about the swinging momentum making it easier to lift things? All in all, it’s an incredibly smart move on Minho’s part - utilising the laws of physics to ease the no doubt  _ immense  _ burden of Chan’s hand.

It’s also  _ fun. _ Chan tightens his grip and starts swinging as well. When they were all younger, and Jeongin was still tiny, he and Minho would swing Jeongin between them,  _ 1, 2, 3, whee!  _ and on the  _ whee!  _ they’d lift him up and his giggles would bubble out of him before he’d hit the ground again. Jeongin isn’t here now, and Chan and Minho can’t swing him anymore (because he had the absolute  _ gall  _ to grow taller than both of them), but that doesn’t mean that simply swinging their hands doesn’t bring back a million good memories.

As they stop in front of the door so that Chan can fumble for the keys, Minho sends Chan a bright grin. ‘We used to do that with Jeongin, do you remember?’

Chan grins back. ‘Yeah. He was so  _ tiny  _ back then.’

‘So were you,’ Minho shrugs, tilting his head back so that, despite only being a  _ little  _ bit taller than Chan, he’s looking down at Chan. Chan sighs. Minho opens his mouth again, eyes twinkling. ‘What’s this I hear about Brian and the others putting you in a box because you were so small?’

Chan buries his head in Minho’s chest.  _ ‘Brian, _ ’ he whines. ‘Why is Brian always spreading lies about me? Why is he so  _ adamant  _ on tainting my reputation beyond repair?’

Minho pats Chan’s head, laughing at his despair. ‘All he said was that you were small and tiny and adorable and that you fit in a box.’ He shrugs and Chan feels the rise and fall of his shoulders, before Minho places his hands on Chan’s shoulders and gently pushes him back.

‘ _ Were  _ adorable? Is that supposed to mean I’m not adorable any more?’

Minho sighs and grabs the keys from Chan’s hand. ‘Stop fishing for compliments, Channie,’ he says, slotting the key into the keyhole. ‘Of course you’re still adorable,’ he mumbles as he steps through the open door.

‘Who’s still adorable?’ Changbin asks, successfully derailing the conversation and stopping Chan from asking  _ really? _ He seems to have found it necessary, for some reason, to stand right in front of the door. Who  _ knows  _ how long he’s been standing there, or why. ‘Is it me?’

‘Here,’ Minho says, shoving his bag at Changbin’s chest and leaning down to take off his shoes.

‘Yes, baby Changbean,’ Chan murmurs, handing Minho his bag and lining up their shoes neatly. ‘Of course you’re still adorable.’

They move through to the kitchen, unpacking the shopping bags and setting out the snacks on the table. 

Seungmin wanders in. Grabbing the plastic bags to put them in the Big Shopping Bag That Holds All The Little Ones, he asks, ‘Did you get me salt and vinegar crisps?’

‘I don’t understand how you and Minho hyung like that stuff,’ Hyunjin says, rooting through the pile on the table for his popcorn. Chan grabs Jeongin’s packet before anyone can accidentally take it.

‘Your tongue is just weak,’ Minho says. ‘Uncultured.’ Hyunjin quails at his glare and hastily slips back into the hall.

‘Stop bullying Hyunjin,’ Jeongin sighs, stepping around Hyunjin and into the kitchen. Chan passes him his popcorn. Jeongin gets the biggest packet because he is Chan’s baby and he only recently got his braces off, so he has to make up for years of missed popcorn opportunities. Chan hands him a bar of chocolate.

‘It’s got popping candy and jellybeans in it,’ he says, in answer to Jeongin’s questioning look. ‘I figured you wouldn’t have been able to try it before.’

‘Thanks, hyung.’ Jeongin tears open the bar and hands Chan a square. ‘Mmm,’ he says, as Chan bites into the square. ‘This is yummy. We should get this every time, hyung.’

Chan ruffles Jeongin’s hair, pleased. ‘Will do. I’m glad you liked it, Innie.’

Jeongin gives Chan a quick smile and steps out of the room.

‘Here,’ Minho passes Chan one of the big bowls. He’s emptied one of the family-sized packets of crisps into it, and the other bowl he’s holding is full of popcorn - not, thankfully, one of those insane flavours Jisung likes to try, like chocolate or zaatar (although the zaatar wasn’t as nauseating as the chocolate; Chan just isn’t really a fan of zaatar) - just normal, plain, run-of-the-mill salted popcorn.

They move out into the living room and set the big bowls on the coffee table. Jisung and Felix are already there, cuddled up together on one of the beanbags with a blanket over them. Chan goes back to the kitchen to get his and Minho’s specific snacks, while Minho throws Jisung and Felix’s snacks right on top of them.

Chan leans over the top of the sofa to pass Minho his crisps, patting the heads of Jeongin, Minho and Seungmin in that order. He settles next to Changbin on the other sofa. Hyunjin’s arms, which were wrapped around Changbin, move to suck Chan into their octopus grip as well. Chan squirms until Changbin’s sharp chin isn’t digging into his arm, then he tears open his popcorn. He settles back against Changbin as Jeongin switches off the light and the screen glows bright.

ii.

Chan is adamant that coming to the not-really-a-car-boot-sale actually-more-of-a-tables-set-up-along-a-blocked-off-road-sale was a good idea. It was! Yes, he’s lost half of the boys he brought with him, but-  _ but _ , he hasn’t lost Minho yet, and they’re having lots of fun! They’ve had lots of yummy, suspiciously oil-drenched food, they’ve petted rabbits and goats in the little petting zoo, and he’s only lost Jisung and Felix. (Admittedly,  _ they  _ may have lost him and Minho, when Minho very vocally declared that he did Not want to stare at paintings of minecraft sheep for ages. Chan is, if anything, slightly in awe of whoever decided to sit down and paint fifteen separate paintings of minecraft sheep.)

So. The - it’s too small to call it a  _ fair, _ it’s just one blocked off road, he’ll just call it the Not Car Boot Sale - the Not Car Boot Sale was definitely a good idea. And Jisung and Felix are big boys, they’ll call Chan when they want to go home.

That leaves Chan and Minho. They’re queuing in front of the popcorn stall, and Chan turns to ask Minho if he wants salted popcorn or salted caramel popcorn, except when he opens his mouth to ask, it’s the empty air to the side of him that receives the question, and Minho is  _ gone. _

Chan’s heart drops, sinks, a heavy lump sticking in his throat, all the way down to his feet. It rests there like a particularly heavy rock. ‘Minho?’ Chan turns around, scanning the crowd. All the faces blur together, and none of them are Minho, or Jisung and Felix, and Chan can’t see any of his boys- and then Minho is in front of him, and he’s resting his elbows - his  _ elbows? _ \- on Chan’s shoulders, and he’s saying something.

‘Chan? Hyung?’ Chan blinks and the worried look on Minho’s face comes into focus. ‘Are you okay?’

‘Minho,’ Chan exhales. ‘Yes. I just thought you got lost.’

Minho frowns. Chan can see this very well, because for whatever earthly reason, Minho’s elbows are still on Chan’s shoulders, which means that Minho’s face is right in front of Chan’s. It’s a shame, because Chan likes Minho’s face very much, but he also hates Minho’s frown very much, because a frown has no business making itself present on Minho’s face. Chan presses the pad of his finger to the crease in Minho’s eyebrows, smoothing it out.

Minho blinks. Chan counts it as a win, because the frown is gone.

‘I wasn’t lost,’ Minho murmurs, looking at something on the ground next to Chan. ‘There was an ice cream van, look,’ Minho slips his elbows off Chan’s shoulders and oh, he’s holding two ice cream cones, ‘so I went to get some ice cream. Didn’t you hear me? I said I’d be back in a few.’

‘No,’ Chan says quietly, taking the ice cream that Minho passes to him. He can finally hear the buzzing of the crowd again, pressing against the walls of his mind. Chan isn’t sure if they drown out his voice, or if his voice gets lost in the grabbing hands of the noisy clamouring of the crowd, so he speaks up. ‘I guess it got drowned out,’ he says, gesturing at the people around them.

‘I guess so,’ Minho says, tripping as the crowd swells, pushing him closer. Once he’s safely situated between Chan and the person queuing in front of them, tucked into Chan’s side so he doesn’t get pulled away, he reaches up and taps Chan’s fingers, wrapped around his ice cream cone. ‘Your ice cream is melting, Chan.’

Chan’s fingers are sticky. He quickly rescues the ice cream; or maybe the ice cream rescues him, because it’s sweet but not cloyingly sweet, it’s light but it sates his hunger a little, and it’s  _ delicious. _

‘What flavour is yours?’ Minho asks. ‘Mine is strawberry.’

‘Didn’t you choose the flavours?’ Chan asks, bemused.

Minho rolls his eyes. ‘Yes, Chan, but I’m allowed to have a temporary lapse of memory, aren’t I?’

The answer to this is obviously yes, so Chan nods. ‘Chocolate,’ he says, waving the ice cream in front of Minho’s face. ‘It’s yummy, thank you. How did you know I love chocolate?’

There’s a pleased glint in Minho’s eye. He shrugs. ‘I guessed. I’m glad you like it. Can I try some?’

‘Sure,’ Chan says, and Minho leans over and takes a bite right out of Chan’s ice cream.

‘Mmm,’ he says, licking his lips. ‘You were right, Chan,’ he pats Chan’s shoulder, ‘it is yummy.’

Someone clears their throat in front of them, and Chan peers around Minho at the tired person manning the popcorn stall. They’re at the front of the queue. 

‘Sorry,’ Chan says, mortified. He dips into a quick bow. ‘I’m so sorry, I didn’t realise we were at the front. Can we please get one-’ he glances at Minho and Minho points at the salted caramel popcorn with his chin- ‘one salted caramel popcorn, please?’ He scrabbles for his wallet, stuffing the rest of the ice cream cone in his mouth, and pulls out a tenner. Fair fare,  _ honestly. _ He hands over the tenner and takes the box of popcorn, juggling his wallet and the box. This is even harder than normal because Minho’s hand is  _ still  _ on his shoulder, so Chan has less mobility available than normal. 

Minho pulls him off to the side, out of the queue, and as Chan straightens up and holds out the popcorn, he says, ‘Channie, we’re going to get separated again, just look at the crowd.’

Chan looks at the crowd. Somehow, there are at least twice as many people milling about than there were a while ago. ‘Oh no,’ he says, stepping closer to Minho, worry bleeding into his voice. Minho grabs his wrist and tugs him closer. ‘Don’t go anywhere, Min.’

‘I won’t,’ Minho says. He hooks a finger round Chan’s belt loop, amused. ‘But I can’t promise that the  _ spirit of the crowd _ won’t possess me and entice me to disappear, or something.’ He drags Chan over to a bench. ‘Come on, let’s eat the popcorn here, then we can walk around some more.’

Minho does this thing where he likes to put something in his mouth and pass it to another person, like it’s a completely normal habit and he doesn’t understand why more people don’t do it. Clearly, it isn’t the most hygienic of habits, but who is Chan to police the habits of his friends?

_ ‘Hyung,’ _ Minho says, making grabby hands at Chan like he isn’t a Fully Grown Adult. ‘Hyung.’ Chan shakes his head. He Will Not get involved in Minho’s unsanitary hijinks. Minho groans and slides down the bench. He sits cross-legged on the floor, leaning his head on the wood of the bench. ‘Don’t be a  _ spoilsport _ . Humour me.’

‘Humour you? What are you, five?’ Minho glares at him. Chan sighs and opens his mouth. Thankfully, Minho just leans up and pops a piece of popcorn in his mouth, instead of scarring all the young children milling about. Minho’s fingers are salty, and sticky from the caramel where they rest on Chan’s lips.

They make quick work of the popcorn, and it seems that Chan’s ability to feed himself flies Minho’s mind. Chan doesn’t mind. Minho shares the popcorn, one for him and one for Chan, one and one and one and one and one, and his fingers are soft and the salt crystals drag across Chan’s tongue and the popcorn is delicious. The pigeon Chan is eyeing doesn’t hop closer, not when he holds out a kernel in the palm of his hand, and not when he sits, stock still, for five minutes. It’s okay, because when Minho tosses a few kernels on the ground to the left of the bench, the pigeon  _ does  _ come, and gobbles up the kernels. Chan gets a picture to show Jisung and Felix, although, knowing Felix, he will somehow have managed to get all the pigeons a mile around eating out of his palm, and thrilled with the prospect.

Minho pulls Chan up, dusting himself down. He throws the popcorn box away, then brushes something away from Chan’s shoulder. ‘Let’s go look at some more stalls,’ he says. The smile he gives Chan seems unnecessarily soft, and Chan  _ knows  _ that it can’t be because looking through stalls with Chan is something he actually wants to do. It can’t be. Chan’s tired, Jisung has been telling him for ages that he needs to sleep more; Chan’s tired and that’s it. Minho bounces on the balls of his feet, waiting for Chan to tug on the cuffs of his jacket before he’s ready to move on.

‘Let’s go, then.’ Chan heads off towards the stall closest to them. There are small keychains laid out on the table, and one of them is a cat that looks a lot like Soonie. As Minho falls into step beside him, something brushes against his hand, and then Minho is slipping his fingers through Chan’s.

‘So we don’t get lost again,’ he offers, swinging their hands between them, and Chan nods before dragging Minho over to the cat keychains. ‘Oh my  _ gosh, _ look at these,’ Minho almost  _ squeals, _ pouncing on some keychains. He holds them up in front of Chan.  _ ‘Look _ at these, Channie!’ The keyrings swinging from his hands are Marie and Duchess from  _ The Aristocats. _ And fuck. Looking at them makes Chan feel six again, back when he’d watched the movie every weekend he could. Chan still feels guilty that he’d thrown out his Marie wallet after finding it a few years ago when sorting through his stuff. Sure, he hadn’t used it in more than ten years, but  _ still  _ \- you don’t just throw away your Marie wallet without feeling sad about it.

‘They’re adorable,’ he says. It doesn’t quite cover the nostalgia washing over him, but Minho sends him a soft smile as Chan takes the Marie keychain from him and looks at it closer. ‘Who was your favourite, Min?’

‘Toulouse, I think,’ Minho says, putting the Duchess keyring down and picking up the Toulouse one, turning it over in his fingers. ‘I thought it was really cool how much he wanted to be an alley cat. You know,’ Minho pauses, doing a very accurate impression of Toulouse’s hissing, spitting hops.

‘I can see,’ Chan says, amused. ‘What a scary alley cat you are.’ He pretends to faint, pressing his hand to his forehead and whispering,  _ ‘Scary _ alley cat.’ Toulouse fits Minho, somehow, and Minho’s Toulouse impression is spot on.

Minho smirks. He catches Chan as he swoons, setting him back on his feet. ‘Who was yours? Was it Marie?’ He nods at the keyring Chan is still holding, tracing his fingers over the corners.

‘Yeah. I couldn’t give you an actual reason, she’s just always been my favourite.’

‘Fair enough,’ Minho says, turning back to the other keyrings. He picks up the one that looks like Soonie for a moment, staring at it, then puts it down. ‘You know what, Chan?’ Chan hums, still looking at the little Marie keyring. She’s got her nose in the air, one paw in front of the other. On his wallet she was sitting, smiling, bow puffing out behind her. The rest of the wallet was pink and purple glittery stripes, and the zip had a little rubber heart dangling from it. Minho continues, ‘We should get matching keyrings.’

Chan looks up. Minho looks earnest, although when Chan meets his eyes his gaze immediately darts back to the keychains laid out on the table. ‘Which ones?’

Minho reaches over to pry his fingers open, taking the keyring from him and dangling it in front of Chan’s eyes. ‘Marie and Toulouse, obviously. Weren’t you paying attention, Chan? Or we could both get this one, look.’ The keyring Minho shows Chan has the whole family: Duchess, Thomas O’Malley, Berlioz, Toulouse and Marie, posing as they did for Madame’s photo. ‘Which do you think?’

Chan looks at them. The family one is cute, yes, but the six-year-old in him is crying that Marie is his  _ favourite, _ and he can’t quite bring himself to ignore it. ‘Marie and Toulouse, do you think?’ he asks quietly, tracing his fingertips over the whole family keyring resting on Minho’s palm. ‘Or do you like this one more?’

‘I’d never say no to a good Toulouse keyring,’ Minho says, despite him not having One Single Toulouse Keyring as far as Chan knows. ‘You’ve made the right choice, Chan, look,’ Minho makes the two keyrings dance into Chan’s field of vision, ‘they’re happy, too.’

Chan smiles. Minho tugs him over to the counter, which is when Chan realises that this whole holding-hands-so-you-don’t-get-lost thing  _ works. _ He tightens his grip on Minho’s fingers, and Minho, scrabbling with his wallet, still squeezes back. He shoves his wallet back into his pocket, thanks the girl behind the table and pulls Chan off to the side. 

‘Here,’ he says, passing Chan the little Marie keyring.

‘Thank you, Min,’ Chan says. He pulls out his wallet, somehow managing, with one hand, to attach the keyring to his wallet. He can feel his smile growing, staring at that little keyring attached to his wallet. ‘I love it,’ he says under his breath.

‘I’m glad,’ Minho says, knocking their joined hands against the side of Chan’s leg. He pulls his own wallet out, attaching the Toulouse to it. ‘There,’ he bangs his wallet against Chan’s, ‘we match.’

‘We do,’ Chan says, and the satisfied smile Minho sends him reminds him of something; something about eyes like sapphires sparkling so bright, making the morning radiant and light. Minho’s eyes aren’t blue, it’s not morning. Still, something about the sentiment strikes true in this moment. Chan files that away to think about later. For now, he and Minho tuck their wallets back into their pockets and continue walking around the fair.

_ iii. _

Chan is lying on the sofa, trying his hardest to appear asleep so as to avoid having to lose Mario Kart with the others, when a heavy body lands right on top of his spleen.

_ ‘Oof,’ _ Chan wheezes, abandoning all pretenses of being asleep to curl up in the foetal position. The body on top of him grunts and turns over, optimising the maximum amount of surface area to completely smother Chan. Remembering the infamous high heel vs. snowshoe example prevalent in all physics textbooks, Chan supposes he should be grateful that the person isn’t digging their knee into him or anything - he’d rather not have to lie awake at night wondering if symptomchecker.com was right and he  _ does  _ have appendicitis.

‘Hyung!’ the body pounds their fists against him. What is this, Bully Chan Day?

Chan lets out a grievous groan. ‘What is it, Sung?’ he asks, making sure to inject his tone with enough righteous pain that it drips with it.

‘I  _ lost, _ ’ Jisung whines, very clearly Not Getting Off Chan. He shifts, and it feels like he’s pressing his hand to his forehead in the classic Victorian Lady Suffering A Great Shock Or Disappointment pose.

‘That’s very sad, Sung, but if you don’t get off me  _ I _ might lose my spleen. Why is your shoulder blade so  _ pointy? _ ’

‘Yah, Jisungie,’ Minho says, from his safe, unsquashed position standing in the kitchen doorway. He crosses the room and puts the bowl of popcorn down on the coffee table, then moves to stand in front of Chan and Jisung. ‘You can’t murder hyung, whose house will we all go to when we run out of chocolate?’

‘First you use me for my chocolate, and then you can’t even be bothered to rescue me?’ Chan wriggles a bit under Jisung so that he can present Minho with his best attempt at a pitiful pout. The corner of Minho’s mouth quirks up, and Chan would be hurt that he looks amused, but Minho grabs Jisung’s arm and hauls him off Chan, dropping him onto poor Changbin, who only wanted to sit on the floor. Chan would feel bad for him, but Changbin didn’t do anything to save Chan from death-by-Jisung, so he only sends Changbin a quick grimace and settles back onto the sofa, stretching out properly now that he no longer has to fear having his pancreas speared by an unfairly pointy elbow.

‘Hyung,’ Minho pokes Chan’s leg. ‘Stop hogging the sofa.’ He pushes Chan to one side of the sofa, settles against the opposite armrest, and reaches out to poke the lump of Jisung, sprawled across Changbin’s lap, with his foot. ‘Stop bothering me, Sungie,’ he grunts, despite the fact that Jisung is doing absolutely nothing, apart from flopping lethargically in Changbin’s lap. ‘I need my emotional support Chan.’

‘Approach, emotional supportee,’ Chan says, flopping over his half of the sofa. Boneless people cannot possibly be expected to take part in a Mario Kart tournament, especially not one that will tear friendships apart in the span of mere hours, and especially not one that will require any more effort than just lounging about. It should be illegal to have to expend effort on friendship-tearing-apart activities when they’re held in  _ your  _ house.

His wriggling means that Chan ends up lying on the sofa, legs hooked over the armrest and arms dangling off the end of the sofa. Ah, true bliss - positions so convoluted that they cause actual pain even by just  _ looking  _ at them. A hand lands near his head, and the  _ zip  _ of the fabric of the sofa as Minho slides down it tells Chan that Minho must be flopping as well.

Or maybe not, Chan thinks, as the ray of light that Minho was blocking hits him right in the eyes. For some presumably sensible reason, Minho has found it necessary to twist his torso off the sofa, in a position that looks even more contorted and painful than Chan’s. Chan sits up to look at him properly, and right when he’s going to ask Minho what exactly he’s doing, Minho untwists himself and sits up straight again.

‘Minho?’ Chan asks, waving his hand in front of Minho’s face.

‘Hm?’ Minho says, fixing his gaze on Chan’s hand as it waves back and forth. ‘Yes, Chan?’ His eyes flick back and forth as Chan moves his hand, which shouldn’t be funny, except Chan did the same thing earlier with Soonie and a feather.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Looking at something,’ Minho says, in a tone devoid of any emotion, like that’s a totally normal and understandable response and Chan is the one acting weird for asking such a stupid question. He doesn’t move his gaze from where his eyes are burning holes into Chan’s hand, still hanging in mid-air. 

Is his  _ hand  _ something? Why would Minho be looking at his hand? Chan jerks his hand suddenly. Minho’s eyes follow it.  _ Why _ ? ‘What are you looking at, Minho?’

‘Your hand,’ Minho says simply. And yeah, that makes complete sense. He’s just looking at Chan’s hand, as you do. That’s all there is to it. Clearly, Chan is an idiot for not realising that his hand is the most interesting thing in the room currently, and not whatever just happened in Mario Kart that has Jisung and Hyunjin shrieking, Jeongin falling off the other sofa, Seungmin and Felix tumbling out of each other’s laps and Changbin  _ howling. _ Not like a wolf, this isn’t  _ Twilight  _ \- no, howling mournfully, like his cat just stole his fuckign garlic bread and betrayed him as he lay sick and festering.

Chan blinks. ‘My hand?’ Minho just nods, pursing his lips. Which are pink. His lips are  _ pink? _ Candyfloss pink? Obviously Minho has pink lips - everyone has pink lips, right? What a weird thing to notice. They make a right pair, Chan and Minho; staring at random body parts like they’ve never seen one before. God, Chan needs to get some more sleep.

It’s been a while since Chan had candyfloss. 

Chan looks at his hand. There’s a small nick on his left index finger from where he was chopping carrots and the knife slipped, but other than that, he can’t really see anything out of the ordinary about it. ‘Is there something wrong with my hand?’

‘Nope,’ Minho says, popping the ‘p’. He bounces in his seat once and finally drags his gaze away from Chan’s hand. ‘It’s just very small, hyung,’ and he has the absolute  _ nerve  _ to say this while looking Chan in the eye.

‘ _ Small? _ ’ Chan splutters. ‘Is my hand not allowed to be small? Maybe I don’t want to be able to hold my phone properly, did you think of that? Maybe I  _ like  _ not being able to fit my fingers around a can of coke!’ Chan isn’t actually keen on either of those things, but that doesn’t mean that Minho can just sit there and tell him to his  _ face  _ that his hands are  _ small! _

‘I didn’t say it was a bad thing, hyung,’ Minho says. A small, amused smile curls his lips. ‘It’s just that-’ he grabs Chan’s hand and places his palm flat against Chan’s- ‘ _ Oh.’ _

_ Oh  _ indeed. Minho’s hand is smaller than Chan’s. Minho’s smile drops.

‘Is your hand  _ bigger  _ than mine? Rude.’

Chan grins. ‘Ha! I’m not tiny! You guys can’t call me tiny any more!’

‘But you’re tiny,’ Minho mumbles, completely ignoring everything Chan just said. ‘I thought your hand would be smaller than mine?’ Minho sighs. He pinches the bridge of his nose and closes his eyes, like this revelation physically pains him. ‘I don’t believe this. I can no longer thrive in this household. Your hands  _ aren’t  _ smaller than mine?’

‘There, there,’ Chan says sympathetically, patting Minho’s head with his free hand. ‘Is it really so important that your hands aren’t bigger than mine?’

_ ‘Yes,’ _ Minho says, sounding absolutely distraught. ‘If your hand is bigger than mine, what next? Will you be taller than me? Are you going to stop being tiny and adorable? Is the earth on its axis going to stop spinning?’

‘Nothing that excessive, I think,’ Chan says, smiling softly. He traces a knuckle along Minho’s cheekbone, brushing away the slight wetness beneath his eyes, 

Minho slides his fingers in between Chan’s and clasps their palms together. ‘Don’t be sad,’ he says, because Chan is clearly the one who is sad about this. Sighing, Chan squeezes Minho’s hand. ‘Your hands are still cute, even if they’re not as small as mine.’

Chan blinks. Cute. That’s a new one. He looks at their hands, bouncing on Minho’s knee. He wouldn’t necessarily call his hands  _ cute, _ but then, he wouldn’t find the fact that his hands are bigger than Minho’s sad, either. (Although he did have to take five minutes to blink rapidly when he first realised that Jeongin is now  _ taller  _ than him.)

Hmm. Linked fingers doesn’t look like a very efficient way to compare hand sizes. Is Minho measuring his  _ grip  _ now? Chan squeezes once, just in case. Do people with bigger hands have a stronger grip? That doesn’t make sense. Surely grip strength is dependent on actual physical strength and not hand size?

‘How much longer are you going to measure our hands, Minho?’ Chan’s palm is getting sweaty. He doesn’t want Minho to make fun of him for his sweaty palms, and he can’t subtly and discreetly wipe his hand on his jeans if Minho is still comparing it to his own hand, and anyway, how can he hold Minho’s hand  _ properly  _ to see if it’ll help him feel better if his hands are sweaty?

Minho looks at Chan like he just asked if Minho has only one cat. ‘I need to go make more popcorn, Channie.’ He squeezes Chan’s hand once then gets up, heading back to the kitchen. The bowl of popcorn he just made is still on the coffee table; still half full. Chan looks at it.

Jeongin lets out an aggrieved sigh. Chan startles. He’d forgotten the rest of the boys were there for a moment. Wow. The absurdity of this whole thing must be really getting to him.  _ ‘Hyung _ ,’ Jeongin groans, tipping his head back so he can stare, blank-eyed, at the ceiling. ‘Do you need the rest of us to start carrying around signs that say  _ That’s a hint! _ so we can wave them around whenever things like this happen?’

‘No?’ Chan wipes his hand on his jeans and grabs a handful of popcorn, then turns to Jeongin, bemused. ‘What’s a thing like this? What’s the hint?’

This time, it’s the 00line that sigh in sync, which is a bit hurtful, because how can they expect Chan to be inside their hive mind? Chan isn’t Edward Cullen, he isn’t sitting here listening to whatever no doubt helpful things they’re yelling at him in their shared brain cell.

‘Innie,’ Hyunjin says, wriggling around on the floor so that he’s facing Jeongin, ‘I promise I can do better than  _ Chan hyung. _ ’

Honestly, Chan is surprised that he has  _ any  _ self-esteem left, if this is what he has to deal with on the daily. At least Jeongin has some faith in him, Chan thinks, when Jeongin just looks at Hyunjin, unimpressed. Jeongin says, ‘Prove it,’ and really, is that fair? Does Hyunjin  _ have  _ to prove that he can do better than Chan? Can’t they just not do anything about it? Surely it can’t hurt them to just assume that Chan and Hyunjin are equally good at whatever it is?

Hyunjin squirms some more, moving forward until his chin is resting on Jeongin’s knees. ‘Can I draw you?’ he asks. From his tone alone Chan can tell that he’s giving Jeongin his Very Best Rendition Of The Pouting Emoji™.

Jeongin raises an eyebrow. ‘Why? You don’t have an art class. It’s  _ Jisung  _ who needs to draw people for homework.’

‘ _ Innie, _ ’ Hyunjin whines. ‘You can draw me, then?’ he asks hopefully.

‘But I don’t have an art class  _ either, _ ’ Jeongin protests. ‘Neither of us do.’

‘Can  _ I _ draw you, Hyunjin?’ Jisung butts in, sticking his chin in Hyunjin’s shoulder. ‘I’ve been needing to work on my French art.’

Hyunjin immediately flails around, waving his arms and legs and generally being such a writhing mess that Chan silently edges closer to the Very Fragile vase that probably belongs to someone’s mum. ‘Oh my  _ god, _ ’ Hyunjin wheezes, kicking Jisung as best he can while trying his best to become identical to a puddle. ‘I didn’t mean it like  _ that, _ oh my god.’

Oh, god. Chan needs a babysitter for these children, he swears he does. Where’s Minho, ready to terrify them into silence, when you need him? At Hyunjin’s energetic protests, everyone in the room dissolves into giggles. They all possess, Chan ruminates as he chokes down a snort, a very mature and cultured sense of humour.

‘The museum,’ Hyunjin says, once they’ve all calmed down sufficiently to be able to hear each other again. ‘You know, the blue one. They’ve got an exhibition right now on developmental psychology. Piaget and things, and how they’re applied to education.’

Jeongin gives the floor around the arm of the sofa (read: Hyunjin’s new sprawling place) a small smile. ‘Really?’

Hyunjin heaves himself up. ‘Yep.’ He sits on the arm of the sofa, swinging his legs. ‘So,’ he says, bumping Jeongin’s shoulder shyly. ‘Are you free on Thursday?’ 

‘See, hyung?’ Seungmin drops onto the sofa next to Chan, and  _ really? _ Are  _ all  _ his boys going to attack him today? ‘Why can’t you be like Hyunjin?’

‘But I don’t like Innie?’ Jeongin is his  _ baby. _ His child. His infant. His own offspring that he raised! What kind of person would Chan be if he had feelings for his  _ child? _

Seungmin pinches the bridge of his nose. ‘That’s not what I  _ meant _ , hyung.’ He slides off the sofa like a snake, collapsing in Felix’s lap. Changbin, Chan’s Last Hope™, sends him a sympathetic glance, and really,  _ what  _ are they all talking about? What Chan wouldn’t give to Know.

Minho walks past him. He drops down on the floor next to Felix and Seungmin, leaning across them to place his glass of water on a coaster on the coffee table. Chan opens his mouth to ask Minho what the boys are talking about, but then Seungmin leans over to whisper something in Minho’s ear, and Minho just nods and  _ sighs, _ like he is Miette and mother has kicked him, and maybe, Chan thinks, maybe he  _ is  _ missing a hint.

Jisung helpfully interrupts Chan’s dawning comprehension by letting out an outraged yell. Oh well. Chan can come to a realisation later, hopefully, if he doesn’t end up pushing it to the back burner because he Doesn’t Want To Think. Whipping around to look at Jisung, Chan realises that somehow, some of them are still playing Mario Kart. He has no idea how, when so many different conversations are going on all at once, but somehow Changbin and Seungmin have managed to, as Jisung so aptly puts it, ‘stab [him] in the back with a three-pointed knife, proceed to  _ twist  _ the knife, and then rub salt in the wound’. Poor Jisung. Chan leans over the edge of the sofa to pat Jisung’s head, offering his condolences.

‘Why did you lose? Who cursed you to be unsuccessful?’ Minho asks tonelessly, wriggling across the floor until he’s sitting directly under Chan. ‘There, there,’ he murmurs, patting Jisung’s shoulder sympathetically. ‘You can win this time. Look,’ he twists around, flattening himself to the floor and pointing under the sofa at something no one else can see, ‘Dori wants you to win.’ Chan has no idea if Dori truly wants Jisung to win, and he doubts he’ll ever find out, because Minho grabs his leg in a way strangely reminiscent of every nightmare of the boogeyman under his bed that Chan has ever had.

‘Minho?’ Chan asks cautiously. Minho finding it necessary to bite Chan’s shoulder ‘just to see if it’s tasty’ the other day hasn’t exactly traumatised him, but it doesn’t hurt to make sure.

‘Emotional support Chanathan,’ Minho says solemnly. He pulls Chan’s leg off the sofa and proceeds to accidentally pull the Whole Entirety of Chan’s Being off the sofa as well. ‘You are being obtuse today. Support me emotionally.’

Chan sighs. ‘The sofa was more comfortable,’ he mutters, pouting for all of two (2) seconds. ‘Come here.’ Chan tugs Minho towards him, wrapping his arms around Minho’s shoulders. He presses his cheek to the crown of Minho’s head. ‘Are you feeling emotionally supported?’

Minho rests his hand on Chan’s. ‘Marginally.’

Chan will take it.

iv.

Chan is sitting in the corner of the practice room, typing out an essay on the techniques he utilised in the song he submitted in his most recent assignment, because It Is Not Enough To Simply Create, and Minho is dancing. They’ve been there for at least two hours now; or at least, the last time Chan had checked the clock, they’d been there for two hours. Chan is doing his best to focus on his essay, but the squeak and thump of Minho’s shoes on the polished wooden floor of the room is really distracting Chan from the clever use of future bass in his latest submission. Fuck this, psytrance is so much  _ easier  _ to write about; he should’ve submitted a song with psytrance instead. At least then he’d be able to glance up at Minho without feeling guilty about abandoning the incredibly riveting content of his essay for Minho’s energetic dancing.

Chan would say who can blame him, when Minho’s dancing is an art form on par with any da Vinci painting you’d care to name, but Chan is a Whole Adult and as such he should be able to ignore distractions - especially distractions that move so fluidly and gracefully, and make noises that have started looping in the back of his head - noises that would make a pretty neat backing for that track he’d settled on the back burner for a while, now that he thinks about it. If it’s work for music, then it doesn’t matter if it’s not the specific work for music he’s supposed to be doing, right?

‘It’s so  _ hot _ ,’ Minho groans, pausing the music he’s had looping for the past few hours. It’s one of Jihoon hyung’s compositions, Chan remembers, for Kwon Soonyoung and his team to compete to in the dance showcase they’d had in Chan’s first year. Half of their team has graduated now, though, but they won by such a landslide that it’s become tradition for all the dance students to perform it at least once. Minho crosses the room to fiddle with the air conditioning. Suddenly the room is filled with the thundering of the air conditioning on full blast.

Minho crosses the room again, rooting around in the pile of his belongings strewn on the ground near Chan’s corner. He grabs his water bottle, unscrewing it and tilting his head back. Chan’s surprised Minho didn’t need water before: his hair is matted with sweat, almost flat on his head, except that the sharp movements and quick turns have fashioned a haystack for the top of his head, Spiky Anime Boy Hair™ sprouting in any direction it pleases. Chan fishes around in Minho’s bag for a comb. Minho lets the water dribble down his head, soaking his hair and plastering it flat to his head. He towels his face dry, then gulps down some water. Chan taps his shoulder with the comb, holding it up for Minho to see, and Minho blinks at it curiously before nodding. As his Adam’s apple bobs with the water, Chan places his laptop to the side and kneels behind Minho, gently pulling the comb through his hair and easing out the knots.

‘I don’t believe this,’ Chan sighs, raking the comb through Minho’s hair. ‘Didn’t I  _ tell  _ you to tie it up? Didn’t I put a headband in here so that when you forgot to tie it up you could still push it out of your face?’

‘Yes,  _ mother, _ ’ Minho says, tipping his head back so that the hand Chan is resting on Minho’s neck is suddenly cradling the back of his head. ‘I just didn’t listen.’ Chan sighs again, deeply, making sure that Minho can tell exactly how completely disappointed he is. He pulls the headband out of the bag. It’s actually one of Hyunjin’s, with a little bow and Eeyore in the centre. Chan had “borrowed” it from Jisung, who had “borrowed” it from Jeongin, who had mysteriously and accidentally summoned it using the Force. Needless to say, Hyunjin has been looking for this specific headband for a long time. Chan drops the headband on Minho’s face, letting Minho wrinkle his nose in displeasure when something hits his face. Sighing, Minho sits up properly and pulls the headband on. He gets up and plays the music again, getting into position. Chan pushes everything to the side and turns his attention back to his essay. Ah yes, the incredibly attention-grabbing nature of whether the phrase is  _ for all intensive purposes _ or  _ for all intents and purposes. _

Minho dances for another half hour, long enough for Chan to finish up his essay and wish he was in his studio so that he could start working on a track he’s been wanting to complete for a while. Minho switches off the music again, flowing through his stretches before sitting down next to Chan. He reaches for what’s left of the bottle and downs it all, slowing down when he remembers not to chug it all at once. 

Minho puts the bottle down and shuffles closer to Chan, looking at his hands. ‘It’s cold, hyung.’ He shuffles even closer, sitting right next to Chan so that their sides are pressed together. Chan closes his laptop and packs it away. ‘Really cold,’ Minho whines, wiggling his fingers. ‘Absolutely freezing.’

Chan sighs. They don’t  _ pay  _ him to deal with this ‘You did say  _ just  _ half an hour ago that it was hot. To remedy that, you turned the air conditioning on. Are you  _ really  _ going to come to me and be surprised that you’re cold now?’

‘My hands can’t get cold,’ Minho groans, ‘I’m a  _ dancer. _ ’

Chan blinks. Maybe he should award Minho Best Non Sequitur Of The Year. Surely being a dancer doesn’t mean that Minho is immune to the cold? He’s got the same flesh and blood as Chan, surely? Does being a dancer mean that he doesn’t get cold? But obviously he does, if he’s sufficiently cold enough to complain about it to Chan.

Minho sighs.  _ ‘Chan, _ ’ he groans, sliding down to lie half across Chan’s lap. ‘My hands, they’re  _ freezing. _ What if I have hypothermia?’ He flings an arm to his head, sighing pitifully and adopting a pose that wouldn’t look out of place on a fainting couch. Hmm. Does Chan make a good fainting couch? He’d ask, but Chan isn’t about to  _ willingly  _ give Minho a reason to destroy every last ounce of his self-confidence with an incredibly self-satisfied smirk while _ still on his lap. _

‘I’m sure you don’t have hypothermia, Min,’ Chan says, looking down at Minho and patting his hair, smoothing it so it lies flat on the headband. Minho gives him a quick, soft smile, and really, how can he  _ possibly  _ be feeling cold? There’s so much  _ warmth  _ in his smile, suffusing into Chan and pooling behind his eyes and making him feel so  _ comfortable, _ and suddenly, Chan feels like he could fall asleep right this moment, here on the hard wooden floor of the practice room with Minho half strewn across him and his back pressing against the cold glass of the mirror behind him. Very handy of Minho to make use of his smile-at-Chan-and-use-the-warmth-generated-to-make-him-so-fucking- _ sleepy  _ skill now and not at 3am last night when all Chan wanted to do was  _ sleep _ . Minho taps Chan’s wrist with his fingers, wrapping his fingers round Chan’s wrist where his hand rests on Minho’s hair.

‘But what if I  _ do _ ?’ Minho asks, pouting. ‘Look at me, I’m  _ shivering. _ ’ His fingers around Chan’s wrist shake; an artful detail that Chan might have fallen for if a. he hadn’t had lots of previous experience with Minho’s dramatic streak, and b. he couldn’t see the gleam in Minho’s eye. Minho brings Chan’s hand down to rest on his chest, trailing his fingers down Chan’s palm so that they slip between his. ‘Your hand is really warm, Channie. Like a furnace, or something.’ Minho pulls himself up, tugging on Chan’s hand and sitting cross-legged in front of Chan. ‘Save me,’ he says, placing his hands in Chan’s.

Chan takes one look at Minho’s solemn expression and sighs. He squeezes Minho’s hands, tracing his thumb up and down the side of Minho’s hand. ‘Is that better?’ Minho nods. ‘No longer dying from pneumonia?’

‘Nah,’ Minho says. ‘But you’d better keep it up, just in case.’ Minho is very close now, seeing as how they’re knee-to-knee and all, and this closeness means that Chan can see very well the pleased look on Minho’s face, like he’s the cat that got the cream. Chan almost expects him to lick his lips; it seems like such a Minho thing to do. There’s a strange rushing at the back of Chan’s mind. Maybe he’s got a headache? He should probably get more sleep, if he’s being totally honest. That way he won’t mistake the thundering of the air conditioning for a  _ headache. _ If Minho is freezing to death right at this very moment, the sluggish flow of his blood crystalising into little blood crystals, then how come he hasn’t just, you know, got up to turn off the air conditioning? Chan will  _ never  _ understand his mind.

Eventually, Minho drags his gaze away from Chan’s apparently fascinating face to check the time on his phone. Chan leans to the side to look at his face in the mirror - he doesn’t  _ seem  _ to have anything on his face, so there’s really nothing for Minho to be so enraptured by.

‘Hyung,’ Minho says, slipping his other hand out of Chan’s to pat Chan’s knee, ‘we should get going now. Someone else booked this room for fifteen minutes from now.’

‘Alright then,’ Chan says, standing up and grabbing his things. While Minho is shoving his possessions into his bag, Chan crosses the room to turn the air conditioning off. The sudden silence is disconcerting; the room sounds strangely empty without the thundering rush of freezing air.

Chan becomes aware of a fluttering exhale on the back of his neck. ‘Boo,’ Minho whispers, as Chan makes eye contact with him in the mirror.

Chan flinches. ‘Stop- stop  _ breathing  _ on me! You know I’m ticklish!’

Minho pauses in his blowing on Chan’s neck to pout. He’d leaned in to torture Chan’s ticklish neck, so when he pouts, his lips rest on Chan’s neck for a moment, which - yeah, it’s strangely interesting. Warm, yes. Feels - nice, almost? Huh. Weird. Did Minho need to be so close to blow on Chan, anyway? Minho glances away from Chan’s eyes in the mirror, focusses on the hem of Chan’s shirt, or something, and for a second neither of them move. Then Minho’s cheek brushes Chan’s shoulder and Chan jerks and giggles because he wasn’t lying when he said he was ticklish, and Minho blinks and steps back, a small grin curling the edges of his mouth. He grabs Chan’s wrist and drags him to the door.

The side of Chan’s neck is warm, and it stays warm as they walk back home, tingling slightly when Chan almost walks off the side of the road and Minho yanks him back, tucking Chan into his side and manoeuvring Chan so that he’s on the inside of the pavement. 

Gosh, Chan thinks. He really needs to start paying more attention to his surroundings.

By the time they make it to the front door, Minho is gripping one of Chan’s backpack straps and muttering about how keeping track of Chan is harder than keeping track of a two-year-old. He unlocks the door and ushers Chan in, waiting until Chan is all the way through before stepping in himself, like he thinks Chan could get lost  _ stepping through a door. _ Really, Chan thinks, he can’t be as bad as  _ that. _

‘Greetings, oh hyungiest of hyungs,’ Jisung says, stepping into the corridor to see who came home. ‘Do you know the name of the sin that caused your humanity to stop being defined under your terms?’

Chan is still blinking, wondering if Jisung has invented a secret code while he was out and somehow expects Chan to know it already, as if he can increase his knowledge via osmosis, when Felix pokes his head out from behind Jisung, grinning widely. ‘Ultimately all we have done or ever will do has been cosmically predetermined from the moment of the universe’s inception,’ he says cheerfully. ‘Are you okay with that? Or are you foolish enough to think you are different?’

‘What the fuck,’ Minho says tonelessly.

Jeongin wanders in. ‘Don’t worry, hyung,’ he says, patting Chan’s head sympathetically. ‘They’re not insane yet. They’re just quoting that Harvard study on what successful small talkers say.’

Right. Yes.  _ That  _ Harvard study, because Chan knows  _ exactly  _ which study Jeongin means, considering the fact that he totally keeps up with studies from a university he doesn’t even go to. Chan shakes his head and continues untying his shoelaces.

‘There’s no need to sound so disappointed with us, Innie,’ Jisung pouts, shaking his head solemnly. ‘We know you’re going to say these to Seungmin and Hyunjin as soon as they walk in.’

‘I am,’ Jeongin says, equally solemnly. ‘But it’s only going to be funny when  _ I  _ do it.’

‘Save me,’ Changbin groans, as Chan walks into the living room. He’s lying on the carpet with his face smushed into the floor, in a position that looks like the height of comfort, if you count trying to become one with the floor as comfortable. He might just be trying to get away from Jisung, Felix and Jeongin, honestly. ‘They’re  _ insane _ ,’ Changbin gasps, reaching out a hand and clawing at the air dramatically. ‘Insane, I tell you.’

‘There, there,’ Jisung says, patting Changbin’s head. Once Changbin stops gasping, he plops himself down on Changbin’s chest. As Changbin wheezes and writhes beneath him, Jisung grins beatifically. ‘I always said you were the best chair, hyung,’ he says companionably, conveniently ignoring Changbin’s choked  _ ‘I’m dying.’ _

Chan shakes his head and chuckles. He also does absolutely nothing to save Changbin. The world is a cruel and dark place, and who is Chan to deprive Changbin of the valuable lesson that he will have to fend for himself? (It’s okay, because Jisung relents and lies down on Changbin instead; a position that greatly increases Changbin’s ability to Not Die Of Lung-Squashyness.)

The doorbell rings then, three times, alerting them to the fact that Hyunjin is home, and then another three times to let them know that Seungmin is with him, because Hyunjin has a doorbell-ringing combination for each of them, because he’s an  _ angel  _ (when he’s not coming back at seven in the morning). Jeongin lights up and rushes to get the door.

He pulls the door open, beaming. ‘Have you ever thought that the death of your father, your father’s father, and all who came before them, were designed? What then does this make of you?’ 

To be fair to Hyunjin and Seungmin, neither of them do much more than glance at each other, baffled, and then at Chan in the doorway behind Jeongin, before they both decide to pat Jeongin awkwardly on the shoulder and make their way inside. A fair reaction to being asked something that contrasts greatly with Jeongin’s cheerful tone, Chan muses, and certainly not that different from what he and Minho had done. Chan pats Jeongin’s shoulder sympathetically and makes his way to the kitchen. Chaos is reigning and all is well in their humble home.

_ v. _

‘Bang Christopher Chan,’ Minho groans.  _ ‘Bang,’ _ he bangs his head on Chan’s shoulder,  _ ‘Christopher,’ _ he points at Chan with such violence that Chan takes a step back to avoid having his eye taken out,  _ ‘Chan,’ _ he pokes Chan in the centre of his chest. ‘Why are you walking so  _ slowly? _ ’

‘Because we don’t have anywhere in particular to be right now?’ Chan says. He gently places his hand on Minho’s forehead and pushes him back before he can bang his head on Chan’s shoulder again. ‘Why, do you have something you’re supposed to be doing right now?’ Chan had checked the whiteboard in the living room with everyone’s schedules for the day before he and Minho had set off; but maybe something has come up for Minho right now?

Minho stares at Chan dramatically, and, in True Dramatic Fashion, he doesn’t even gaze  _ at  _ Chan, but more at the middle distance to the left of Chan’s head. ‘Not really,’ Minho says, shrugging dissatisfiedly like he can’t believe he  _ doesn’t  _ have somewhere he urgently needs to be right now, ‘but I’m  _ tired. _ I want to go home and  _ sleep. _ Hyunjin said he’d let me do his hair tonight, so I have to get back so I have time to give him the ugliest hairstyle I can think of.’ Minho’s idea of giving Hyunjin the ugliest hairstyle he can think of often ends up with Hyunjin’s hair looking  _ gorgeous, _ because, while Minho always starts off giving Hyunjin unevenly-proportioned pineapples that stick out vertically from his head, by the time he’s done with Hyunjin’s hair it always looks so beautiful that the others dissolve into wailed mutters about him putting Rapunzel out of business.

‘What about  _ me? _ ’ Chan pouts. Despite Minho’s apparent desire to get home as soon as possible, they’ve stopped at the side of the pavement, standing under some flower-laden branches of a tree that are sticking out from behind the fence. ‘Why don’t you do my hair as well?’ He gives Minho the look that always has Jisung relenting and splitting his chocolate with Chan. Then again, the very same expression generally elicits a disgusted eyebrow-raise from Jeongin, so maybe its effectiveness is debatable. Well. It’s the greatest weapon in Chan’s arsenal, so he’s  _ definitely  _ going to pull it out if it means he can have Minho’s fingers in his hair.

Minho stares at him, unimpressed. Oh well. Chan had  _ hoped  _ that it would work on Minho - had even  _ expected  _ it to, just a little, deep down in the recesses of his heart. Some things must just be too good to be true, then. ‘Hyung,’ Minho says. He starts saying something, then snaps his mouth shut with a  _ pop. _ ‘Your hair isn’t long enough,’ is what he settles on eventually, shrugging. ‘I don’t have that much to work with.’

‘Are you calling me  _ bald? _ ’ Chan clutches at his heart, outraged, and wishes he had a string of pearls to clutch at for greater effect.

Minho laughs. Rude. ‘No,’ he says, patting Chan’s shoulder to calm him down. ‘I’m just saying that Hyunjin’s  _ shoulder-length _ hair is a  _ little  _ bit longer than this.’ Minho drags his hand up, pats Chan’s cheek once and then lightly tugs on one of Chan’s curls. ‘Look,’ Minho twirls the ringlet round his finger, twisting it round and round. ‘It’s too short to braid properly.’

Chan pouts. ‘You could  _ try,’ _ he says, as Minho pulls the ringlet down lightly and watches it spring back up. Minho is very close like this, completely focussed on Chan’s hair, and Chan can see Minho’s strangely fascinating dangling earring; his polar bear earrings, too; the swoop of his hair slightly ruffled from a particularly violent gust of wind, some strands glowing golden in the sunset behind him; Minho’s  _ lips, _ which are red today, cranberry-red and Chan can suddenly  _ taste  _ the tartness on his tongue; and Minho is so  _ close. _ Chan reaches up, traces the back of a knuckle down the length of Minho’s earring. He follows his actions with his eyes, and when he glances up, Minho is already watching him. Chan’s breath catches in his throat. There is a moment when neither of them look away, and there’s something so undeniably  _ soft  _ in the depth of Minho’s eyes - and then someone mutters  _ excuse me _ and squeezes in between them.

Chan lets out his breath. Across from him, he can hear Minho do the same. They both turn to stare after the random passerby and chuckle. ‘Come on,’ Minho says eventually, turning back to Chan and jerking his head at the traffic light. There are two small pink spots on his cheeks, and Chan is sure that he has matching ones. ‘We should get going again.’

‘Yeah,’ Chan says. He bounces on the balls of his feet, making to move after Minho, and stops short when something brushes the top of his head.

Sensing that Chan’s not behind him, Minho turns around. ‘It’s just a leaf,’ he says, reaching up to brush it out of Chan’s hair. His hand lingers in Chan’s hair for a moment. Then, Minho blinks, as if pulling himself together. ‘There. All gone.’ He pats Chan’s hair down again. ‘Come on.’ Minho moves forward again, grabbing Chan’s arm and pulling him across the road. Once across, Minho tugs Chan closer to him. ‘Look at that,’ he points at a pigeon. ‘Look at that pigeon. Its neck feathers are so colourful.’

Chan looks at the pigeon. ‘It’s really pretty,’ he murmurs. ‘Its neck feathers are so purple. I didn’t know they grew like that.’ 

Minho squeezes his arm. ‘Right? The colours are so gorgeous.’

They pause to give the pigeon the photoshoot it deserves, complete with crouching uncomfortably to get the pigeon’s best angles (which are all of them, really). Ten minutes later, Chan looks up from his phone camera - which is good, because his storage can’t handle any  _ more  _ pigeon pictures. ‘Wait, didn’t we want to get home soon?’

‘Oh shit, yeah.’ Minho stands up and dusts himself off. ‘Come on, we should hurry before Hyunjin falls asleep on the sofa.’ Grabbing Chan’s hand, he sets off at a rapid clip, pulling Chan behind him. Chan wiggles his fingers to get a better grip and stumbles, keeping pace with Minho.

In the end, it’s all for naught. As Chan unlocks the door and they slip through, they catch sight of Jeongin, elbow-deep in Hyunjin’s hair. (Not really, but someone about the way Jeongin is sticking his arms out at strange angles has Chan suspecting that maybe Jeongin hasn’t had much practice doing hair.)

‘You took too long,’ Hyunjin says, grinning cheerfully at Minho. At Minho’s friendly glare, he tacks on a ‘hyung. I got bored of waiting for you, hyung.’

Minho sighs dramatically. ‘The things I do for you kids,’ he says, draping himself over the back of the sofa. ‘Chan and I rushed back, and what repayment do I get but being  _ replaced?’ _ Jisung, walking past the sofa, chortles at this. Minho watches him suspiciously, curling up into a ball the second Jisung reaches out a hand to commit the Evil Act of tickling Minho’s tummy. Undeterred, Jisung merely holds up his hands as if to protest his innocence, and wanders out of reach.

‘Felix left some pasta in the fridge for you two,’ Jeongin says, frowning at the three sections of hair he’s trying to braid. ‘We weren’t sure when you’d be back. We’ve all eaten, though.’

Chan pokes his head into Felix’s room. ‘Thanks, Lix,’ he says. Felix shoots him a quick grin, then turns back to his game. Making his way back to the kitchen, Chan splits the pasta into two bowls, warming it in the microwave. As he sets the table, Minho slides down to sit on the sofa properly, tutting at Jeongin’s poor attempt at a braid.

‘Here,’ he says, raking his fingers through Hyunjin’s hair, ‘let me show you.’ Jeongin huffs, but he moves back and lets Minho demonstrate. Chan shakes his head, trying to disperse the fond fog suffusing in his mind as he watches them.

The microwave beeps, and Chan sets the bowls on the table. ‘Dinner, Min.’

Minho looks up, passing his braid-in-progress to Jeongin. ‘Yeah, let me just wash my hands.’

Minho pulls out Chan’s chair for him as he walks past - but not before shaking his hands so that Chan gets absolutely splattered by water droplets. Chan sighs. Minho digs through the cutlery drawer to look for His Specific Favourite Fork (it’s got a plastic handle decorated with cats, and it is, according to Minho, Very Cute).

‘Min.’ Chan holds up the fork, already on the table. Minho looks up. ‘I know which fork you like.’ Chan says, as Minho smiles and sits down. ‘You almost killed Changbin with this fork the other day.’

‘He said it wasn’t cute,’ Minho shrugs. ‘I thought we didn’t tolerate falsehoods in this household?’

‘We don’t,’ Chan says, amused. He twirls his spaghetti around his fork, pouting when Minho raises his eyebrows. ‘No, it’s not childish, shut  _ up.’ _

‘I didn’t say it was,’ Minho laughs. ‘I didn’t say  _ anything.’ _

Chan huffs and turns back to his food. Grinning, Minho gives Chan’s foot a playful nudge with his own until Chan, laughing, relents. ‘I’m not actually upset, Min.’

‘Good,’ Minho says, smiling satisfiedly. ‘This pasta is too good to waste time being upset. Oh, hey,’ he adds, Out Of Nowhere. ‘Maybe we should watch Lady and the Tramp next movie night.’

Chan is incredibly grateful that he hadn’t been about to take a drink of water. ‘Sure,’ he manages to say, as Minho wiggles his eyebrows at him. Chan’s pretty sure that his face and the tomato sauce are pretty much the same colour - and not because tomato sauce is incredibly messy.

Minho refills Chan's glass of water, and the smile he gives Chan is almost unfairly soft.

_ \+ i. _

After much introspection, and no less than three (3) soul-searching songs that Chan has locked away to never see the light of day (or the curious eyes of Changbin and Jisung), Chan has come to the realisation that the Little Crush he had on Minho three years ago has not, in fact, gone away, and he is not, in fact, over Minho.

Huh.

This revelation, strangely, doesn’t surprise Chan as much as it should. Maybe his subconscious deserves more credit than he gives it.

Anyway. After  _ another  _ long night of introspection, Chan comes to the conclusion that he Will Let Minho Know His Feelings, because while the boys love to call him dense, he’s not  _ that  _ dense, and he’s fairly confident in his ability to recognise a hint when presented with one. This means that Chan has a plan: Step One, work up the courage to confess to Minho; Step Two, confess to Minho.

Working up the courage takes quite a while, during which he deep cleans the kitchen, finally plants the tomato seeds they’ve had lying around in the packet for ages, takes Jeongin out for lunch, takes  _ Seungmin  _ out for lunch, rearranges the bookshelves in colour order, and finally asks Hyunjin to show him how to mend seams, because there is no better time than right now to fix the hole in his hoodie that he’s been meaning to fix for more than half a year. All in all, Chan has a Very Productive three days.

On the third night, Changbin takes him aside after dinner. ‘Hyung,’ he says, grabbing Chan’s arm before he can move through to the living room. ‘Can I talk to you for a second?’

‘Sure,’ Chan says, moving back into the kitchen and rooting around for everyone’s snacks. ‘Is something wrong, Binnie?’

‘No,’ Changbin says, getting out a bowl and emptying two family-sized packets of crisps into it. ‘I was just wondering if you’re okay? You’ve been avoiding doing something, I can tell. Thank you for planting the tomatoes, by the way - I was going to do it last week, but I forgot.’

Chan pauses.  _ ‘Bin,’ _ he says, pulling Changbin into a hug. Changbin hums, ruffling Chan’s hair in a startling echo of the way Chan does himself, to his boys. Changbin pats Chan’s back. Spluttering, Chan manages to appreciate that Changbin has Really Been Hitting The Gym. Maybe they should appoint Changbin as their Designated Heimlich Manoeuvre Person. ‘Thank you for asking,’ Chan whispers into Changbin’s shoulder. 

Changbin pats his back again, lighter. ‘Jisung said we should wait until you suggested we paint his and Jeongin’s room to ask, but I thought now might be a better time - who knows what they would’ve asked to paint on the walls.’

‘True,’ Chan chuckles, squeezing Changbin’s arm and stepping back. He piles most of the packets on the table into his arms, and Changbin picks up the bowl and the other packets. ‘I’ll do it soon, Bin.’

Changbin hums and switches off the kitchen light. They move through into the living room, Changbin placing the bowl down on the coffee table. Chan distributes the snacks.

Soon, they’re all curled up in the living room in front of  _ How To Train Your Dragon 2, _ because apparently Changbin and Hyunjin haven’t watched it. Chan’s shocked gasp mingled nicely with Felix’s outraged one, and saved them a lot of time that would have otherwise been used arguing about what to watch. So, on screen: Hiccup! Toothless! Astrid!  _ Eret son of Eret! _ Sadly, Chan can’t pay too much attention to the screen, because Minho is the one sitting next to him, sharing his family-size packet of crisps with Jisung (Jisung, in true Jisung manner, ran out of his own crisps ten minutes into the movie), leaning on Chan. He’s leaning on Chan  _ a lot _ , Chan thinks. Chan’s arm tingles where Minho is pressed against him, his shoulder buzzes when Minho takes his crisps back from Jisung and leans back, grazing Chan’s shoulder with his chin. Really it’s just a slight touch, Minho’s  _ barely  _ brushing him, but Chan tingles all over, a sort of buzzing warmth pooling in his limbs. Chan is aware of Minho, very, very aware - not in the way he’s aware of Hyunjin’s hands when he’s chopping vegetables in the kitchen, while dancing along to whatever song he’s playing at the same time, and waving the knife around in a way that would be, quite frankly, incredibly worrying if they weren’t all aware of this habit; no, Chan is aware of Minho in the same way that he’s aware of the warmth trapped under his blanket on the rare morning when he can sleep in, and wake up slowly; warm, lazily comfortable, a kind of warm haze that tastes like home and feels like it could last forever.

God. Maybe he needs to write another song; get it out of his system again. Maybe this warmth is going to swell inside him and  _ burn  _ him, like the sun does when you’re lying on the grass early in the summer morning, before the heat gets too much, and then you fall asleep, and when you wake up it’s past midday and it’s so  _ hot  _ you can’t bring yourself to get up.

‘Channie,’ Minho mumbles. He wriggles so that he’s tucked into Chan’s side, resting his head on Chan’s shoulder. ‘I am going to fall asleep right here on this sofa.’

‘You  _ can’t,’  _ Chan whispers, outraged. ‘It’s  _ How To Train Your Dragon 2!’ _ He slips his arm around Minho, tugging him closer. 

Minho snorts and taps the back of Chan’s hand mindlessly. ‘I gathered,’ he murmurs drily. ‘Shut up, no, I’m watching,’ he adds, when Chan pouts at him. His fingers drum the back of Chan’s hand. Something inside Chan swells in tune with the background music of the movie.

On screen, Valka and Stoick stare at each other

_ ‘I only want your hand to hold,’ _ Valka sings, and Chan fidgets a bit. Minho falls into his space a little more. The background music swells so much Chan can’t even  _ hear  _ it any more.

‘Hey, Minho,’ Chan whispers.

‘Mmm?’ Minho hums, wriggling until he’s looking up at Chan, chin digging into Chan’s shoulder. God, the light from the TV is reflecting in his eyes and it looks like _ stars. _

‘Can I hold your hand?’ Chan asks. Stoick twirls Valka around. Felix chokes.

Minho blinks, a slow smile blooming across his face. Reaching up to squish Chan’s cheeks, he looks so undeniably _ fond, _ something catches in Chan’s throat. ‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘Why not. It’s about time.’

Chan tangles his fingers with Minho’s, tracing his thumb along the back of Minho’s hand, and Minho snuggles closer, burying his head in the crook of Chan’s neck.

(Later, after Hyunjin has insisted that they watch  _ How To Train Your Dragon 3 _ as well, because he can’t possibly go to sleep without knowing what happens next, and it’s well past Jeongin’s bedtime, Chan nudges Minho awake. Changbin glances at them as he gathers all the empty packets, smiling softly when he sees Minho nestled against Chan.

‘Channie,’ Minho mumbles, burying his head in Chan’s shoulder. ‘I am  _ not  _ going to walk all the way back to my room.’

‘Stay here, then,’ Chan offers, chuckling when Minho groans and pulls Chan back onto the sofa. ‘My back is going to hurt in the morning, isn’t it?’

‘Then suffer, old man,’ Minho says sleepily, grabbing Chan’s hand and squeezing. 

Suffer isn’t the word Chan would choose to describe this feeling.)

**Author's Note:**

> so in my doc i made the font so fucking tiny i almost couldn't see it, but im pretty sure two of my classmates saw anyway??? they haven't brought it up so im not Sure but shhdsakldshkla  
> also i used to have a marie wallet but my mum made me throw it away when we moved house because i "didn't need it" and "wasn't using it"  
> constructive criticism would be much appreciated; i hope you liked it!!  
> here's my [tumblr](https://jeonghoneyss.tumblr.com/), i scream a lot about my wips, feel free to drop by!


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